Category Archives: Asian Restaurants

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Surprised at this restaurant’s apparent anonymity as its located near Owl of Minerva and right across the famed Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu restaurant. I had to suggest this restaurant to Urbanspoon, so for further reviews try Yelp or Google reviews. If you have trouble finding it, the outside exterior has orange signage and the interior is simply decorated with wooden furnishings. It’s a bit plain but typical of a cheap Asian restaurant, where food and affordability is the emphasis not decor.

I have been on a Korean food binge lately and came across Lim Ga Ne while in the area. Decided to come with my family because my mom wanted to try a variety of Korean dishes (she likes to cook). The first dish we received was a complimentary pancake appetizer, a nice yummy touch I appreciated. Then we had the bibimbap I usually love to order, which I sadly did not love at this restaurant. Felt it was a bit bland and missing a certain “jena se quai” – Korean style. Our third dish was hot noodles, also fine but nothing I would usually order as I typically eat that at home.

It was during this food fest that the bowls of rice my mom ordered arrived, we were given black rice aka purple/jasmine rice. For those of you who haven’t tried it, it is like sticky rice and has lots of nutrients. Black rice is something new to me as well but I would recommend trying it. 🙂

Finally we reach my last dish, the samgapsal! For about $35, you can get this combo with a complimentary stew. I chose kimchi stew because I love kimchi and thought it might taste good. I was wrong, so wrong. I would not recommend this when ordering, it tasted like kimchi and water… JUST THAT. However, the samgapsal was really good! The meat’s tender and soft, definitely filling for two or three people. Wrap up the meat with lettuce and kimchi, dip in sauce provided and let the foodie-liciousness of it take over! 😀

Service was good, my table was taking a long time to order but our server was nice enough not to show her impatience. Especially since it got noticeably busier later on.

Overall, I would definitely visit again if just for the samgapsal and rice dishes. I do suggest making reservations if you plan on dining in the evening though, I think it gets busier then.

Dress code: Casual, nice for friends and family. You will particularly enjoy it if you are familiar with the Korean language and pop culture. They only play Korean shows on their Television. No subs!! Haha.

Also known as Yummy’s, this restaurant is one of the go-to places for some cheap korean food. It’s frequented by many students and popular with my friends for their kimchi stew and many side dishes. I like their dukbokki too but it can be a hit or miss sometimes. Something to do with the soup I guess.

The restaurant isn’t anything fancy but serves its purpose if you are in the area and hunkering for some Korean food ASAP. Servers are nice and polite.

Dress-code: Casual. Good for friends and family but not work.

Note: They play Korean music on their TV’s, so you can enjoy a bit of Korea’s pop songs if you like.

This restaurant would usually be out of the way for me but luckily I had a ride to get there. Went with friends who wanted to have Korean B.B.Q and arrived at the restaurant around 6:30pm.

Initially, we had planned to try the all you can eat advertised on their website for $26.95 but after arriving we were told it is only available for lunch. I guess they haven’t updated their website yet. Decided then to ordered the B.B.Q Combo #2 for 3 people at $59.95 instead. Combo includes 3 miso soups, 3 rice bowls and one miga salad or lettuce. We were provided 2 plates with L.A. beefshort ribs, beef bulgogi, spicy pork and chicken, mussel, shrimp and mushrooms. I really enjoyed the beef short ribs and beef blugogi but I wouldn’t recommend their miga salad as I found it covered with a lot of dressing (perhaps too much sesame seed oil?). Also, portions for combo might not be enough if dining with just guys. I would suggest ordering separate dishes or just all you can eat lunch.

With service, servers were very nice and polite. They constantly changed the B.B.Q plate so smoke wouldn’t come up too much and have a buzzer installed so you can ask for assistance too. They were so attentive, I think I only used the buzzer once to ask for a drink refill.

Overall, I would recommend trying Miga if you are in the area and in the mood for some Korean & Japanese food. Note – My friend did mention afterwards that they had a stomach ache but I am not sure why since they passed most of the food to me. Something done I think as their subtle attempt of not overeating and having the added benefit of fattening me up too. Grrrr, darn my love affair with meat! Haha

Dress code: Casual. Good for lunch and dinner with friends and family. Not really for work purposes though.

It all started a few years ago, when Salad King was located across the street from where they are now. Unfortunately, the building caught on fire due to some kind of electric problem and just as they were reopening..the wall from the building above them collapsed. Luckily no one was seriously hurt but they experienced a few incidents during this time and took over a year to rebuild it, giving competitors like Asian Bowl a chance to attract their customers.

After this, they just decided to relocate and fortunately haven’t had any problems since. Salad King is still as popular as ever.

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It has been remiss of me not to review Salad King as it is one of the most popular restaurants to eat phud thai at. This place is so popular the business survived what I still think of as a curse.

I recommend the siam fried rice and phud thai fry noodles in shrimp or chicken. Salad King gives you an option of how spicy you want your dish as well. From mild/medium/1 chili to 20 chilis.

If you are new to Salad King you might be surprised at the seating arrangements. They have these long metal tables where you would need to eat next to strangers. This is to fit the maximum number of people in the restaurant. They also added small tables so now you can sit in groups of 4 or so too, however getting seats there are kind of difficult.

Tips: go in smaller groups, its easier to get seating that way. They only do reservations at lunch and you can pick up any food orders there but no delivery.

Great for lunches and dinners with friends, family, coworkers and casual dates. Its pretty loud so don’t come here with your boss or have an important meeting to discuss.

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With a restaurant franchise, I think service is one of the essential things that a restaurant can do to differentiate itself. From my previous review of Spring Rolls, I find the Spring Rolls at Yonge and Bloor to be much more hurried.

I went here with a friend for dinner and decided to try this new all you can eat menu while my friend wanted to order something off the regular menu. Our waiter, Tony, was too pushy and was acting like he was doing us a favour by getting our orders and such. At first he said we both had to use this all you can eat option but after explaining my friend is a vegan and therefore could probably only eat 25% of what was listed on the menu, he finally accepted.

The all you can eat dinner is from 3pm to 10pm. Monday to Thursday is $22.99 and Friday to Sunday is $24.99 with a premium menu choice for $2.00 extra. Regular all you can eat menu has soups, salads, dim sum, appetizers, thai, chinese, sushi, sashimi, handrolls and pizza options. Premium menu is the regular menu plus a dessert and chef’s special menu.

I tried the har gow, udon teriyaki noodles, salmon sashimi, unagi (bbq eel) dragon roll, dynamite roll and spicy salmon roll. The only thing I didnt like was the udon noodles and that was because they kind of tasted bland and kind of funny. I asked if I could not be charged for not finishing the noodles because they tasted weird and I didnt want to get sick from eating them. Our waiter acted like he’s doing me such a favour that I am totally turned off by it. I ask for the bill, we pay and leave.

Therefore, if I plan to eat at Spring Rolls…I will probably make my way to the Dundas or Front St. location if I can.

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As a Chinese restaurant this was okay, but not up there with my foodie favs. However, I dont expect too much since this restaurant is located on Bloor. I usually go to Chinatown for asian food. Came here for a lunch with some family, shared fried noodles, rice, pork, beef, dim sum, etc. I dont exactly remember what was ordered though, but you can check prices at their website.

This is a Chinese restaurant, a good place to eat but I wouldn’t recommend getting their pho. Personally, I don’t really like their pho when I compare it to my usual standards. They use larger noodles then normal and like most asian restaurants, the cleanliness of utensils are in doubt. So you must remember to wipe them throughly before eating. You are given a complimentary standard tea.

I recommend the dish with mix of noodles, beef, lettuce and shrimp grilled on sugar canes. It was good! My dessert was a drink consisting of milk, crushed ice, beans, jelly and etc. However, I don’t recommend my dessert now because they either buy it from a store or pre-make it. So it is not as fresh. Go with their shakes/smoothies.

One of the good and bad things with this restaurant is that it opens late. You can come here for a late bite after clubbing but you also need to be prepared to wait a while for a table and see some drunk rowdy behaviour occasionally.

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I went here with some family and we had fried noodles, dim sum, fried octopus legs, dumplings with shrimp and veggies, sticky rice, rice noodle roll (which i refer to as bánh cuốn). bánh cuốn is a thin rice noodle roll filled with shrimp. It can also be filled with pork, beef, vegetables, or other ingredients. They are usually available as a morning dish, same with dim sum. But both can be ordered before 4pm at this restaurant. I also had crab claws and they cost $2-4 each.

I liked everything except the dumplings with vegetables and possibly the fried noodles. They were OK. Everything else was not bad. Service was quick too even though it was packed and we went during 4-5pm.